Awake: "Oregon"Review

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Enter the Gemini.

By Matt Fowler

Warning: Full spoilers for the episode follow...

Whereas "Kate is Enough" felt like a bit of a stand-alone story focusing on Britten's heightened anxiety over Rex's grief, "Oregon" stepped in and launched the series forward, introducing one of Britten's worlds to a rather apropos serial killer. And while this show still has yet to re-address the conversation it showed us between Harper and the mystery man at the end of "The Little Guy," I still give it points for giving us the start of another ongoing thread. It may lead us all to ruin, but I appreciate the ambition.

Yes, dropping a nefarious serial killer into the mix could spell either salvation or disaster. On one hand, it leads us into more absurdist TV crime-show cliche territory. But, on the other hand, if it's done well it can provide us all with an actual person for Britten to pursue; an embodiment of his split psychosis. A man obsessed with duality. A possible arch-nemesis. Now all I can hope for, after the end of this episode, is that Gemini also somehow pops up in the "Red" world, fully taking advantage of this show's clever use of congruent realities.

And spring-boarding off of last week's episode (where we saw that those people outside of Britten's direct circle of contact were fair game), Gemini could take on a whole new sheen in the "Red" world. I mean, he might even be dead. He could have been the actual man that Agent Santoro (Megan Dodds) killed. There are a number of interesting possibilities to play with here and...well, now I'm just speculating and getting ahead of the show a bit. It was interesting, though, that Gemini and Santoro popped up in Rex's "Green" world. I think everything on this show deserves hyper-analysis, but I can't really pinpoint a reason why Rex seems to occupy the most outrageously action-packed crime-universe, while Hannah's world, for now, seems more subdued.

Maybe it's a further indication that Rex's world is the dream world. I mean, it would be too much of a coincidence that a killer such as Gemini, with his methods and thematic connection to Britten's own situation, would exist in real life, right? And also that he now, thanks to breaking in to Dr. Evan's office, knows Britten's secret and now feels a kinship toward him? So it's seeming more and more like the "Green" world, where Rex was kidnapped by a man whose guilt Britten had misgivings about, and where the Gemini killer is on the loose and playing a "cat and mouse" game, is the manufactured world.

On an episode by episode basis, there's a ton of fascinating psychotherapy mumbo-jumbo that really helps accentuate the series. In "Oregon" however, both Evans and Dr. Lee focused in more on the possibility of Hannah moving away and leaving Britten rather than offering up their take on Gemini; with Evans believing that Hannah leaving in his dream meant progress towards Britten letting her go and Lee accusing Britten of husbandly "selective listening." I did like Lee's speech about how most marriages don't end in epic arguments but with "two people who wander slowly away from each other until one day they look and they discover they're so far apart there's no way back." Very poetic. Very sad. And very true to what can happen to people after the death of a child.

But since Lee didn't really chime in with his theory of why Britten might be creating a lavish, violent serial killer case in the "Green" world, maybe I'll offer up my own opinions; in order to play Devil's Advocate for the "Red" realm. Within the Gemini case (which seems heightened enough to be a dream anyhow) was Britten butting heads with the stubborn Agent Santoro (Megan Dodds), a woman who eventually is led back to her estranged family. Plus, Britten saw Hannah's receipt for the Mountain Top moving company first, which then led him to using it as a clue in the Gemini case.

In the "Green" reality, I enjoyed the fact that Bird held an intense dislike for FBI profilers, likening them to psychic con artists; which of course is what Britten's intuition about the Mountain Top warehouse made him seem like. And kudos to this show for raising the stakes as far as the actual trouble that Britten can get into for having his "hunches." This week he actually got pegged, for a brief moment, as a Gemini copycat - making for a well-played out, twisty episode full of actual consequences. We also got to see Harper pop up in the in this world for the first time but, as I mentioned before, there was no talk of Britten's car accident. And over in the "Red" world Britten agreed to move out of state with Hannah, leaving us with the question: What happens when he has to sleep in different beds? Also, what if he works out of different precincts with completely different personnel? Is there anything constant that Britten needs to continue living in these two realities? Or is it really just as simple as him closing his eyes?

I think that my only real gripe about this episode, aside from the nervousness I feel over the series dipping its toes into the way-diluted serial killer pond, was the actor who played Gemini himself. He looked too bland and sounded too droll. It seems minor, but if this character is recurring then I feel like you need someone who leaves more of an impression.

Matt Fowler is an Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @MattIGN.